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We do indeed live in auspicious times. Our chosen realities are changing around us as we change within. This is so for each of us, regardless of the direction of that change. No matter how hard we try to keep our heads buried in the sand, information gets in. For some, this is so irritable they work harder to anesthetize themselves to Truth with drugs and alcohol, sex and work. Pervasive fear at the core of them catalyzes and taking what they believe they need from life to protect them from the unknown becomes their default modus operandi. For others, the light comes on and they realize there is more to the world than what they have previously known. Their hearts open and sharing and helping others resonates, seems to be the only logical manner through which to deal with the changing world. Either way, a shift is occurring and the importance of that change is at both the individual and the collective level.

Our individuated sense of self is changing. The “I” of “me”. For those awakening due to the energetic bombardment of the planet and their changing emotional states and dna, they are beginning to realize that the universe without is also within. That the illusory separation between us is fading and the Truth is rising fast. Lies, untruths don’t last as long as they used to. It’s becoming easier to read other people’s body language. The eyes always tell the real story. More synchronicities are happening. The animals sometimes seem to be communicating with you. So do the plants. There are strange lights in the sky. Not planes, not satellites. Some people are starting to look at you wierdly. Friends whom you used to have so much in common with grow increasingly distant. You don’t want to do the things you used to, watch the same shows, go to the same bars or clubs. And yet, while all these changes are occurring within you, you are intimately aware of your connection to everyone else, even those who seem to be moving away from you.

At some point, you may come to realize that “I” is, truly, “We”. Your sense of compassion awakens and you might find yourself walking down the street crying for absolutely no reason. You may be day-dreaming more, or your night-time dreams are more vivid and stranger than they’ve ever been. You may chalk this down to an increase in distraction and lack of centered-ness as well as an overactive imagination. But what you do not realize, is that you are working with the multi-dimensional aspect of reality. That you are growing within. That your soul is reaching out to its greater aspects that exist beyond the ego, beyond the material world around us, that stretch out into the infinite and the eternal and encompass greater potentialities than our limited earthly experience could ever contain. That what your culture calls your imagination is actually much more important than you ever realized. In one sense, it is the accumulation and collapsing of timelines into one consciousness. That is the endeavor we are currently embarked upon.

There’s a movie Jet Li did called The One. A martial arts movie, but relevant in that the movie was about alternate realities. Jet Li was a criminal in one reality who found out how to move between them. He traveled to all these different timelines using technology killing copies of himself. As he did so he got stronger and stronger. He could jump really high and he was very strong. In the last timeline, his other self was a cop. The cop version of himself found out about his evil other self and his dastardly shenanigans and so, of course, the two eventually had to fight. You can guess which copy of himself One/Won.

The point is that we are actively engaged in the process of timeline collapse right here, right now. Desiring to minimize our capabilities, we tell ourselves that it is all just our imagination. Make-believe. But that is totally discounting our innate capabilities and misunderstanding what the imagination truly is. We must always remember that, in an infinite creation, everything is probable. that means that the things we think we are making up in our minds are potential and probable timelines in concurrent existence elsewhere. So when we think about ‘what if’s’ or engage in totally whimsical flights of fancy, or if we make choices that take us down one path rather than another, consciously collapsing those alternate realities into your current reality makes each of us The One. This process is occurring unconsciously for most of the world’s population and so it is causing a lot of individual confusion and will lead to insanity in some.

By collapsing these probabilities we become clear. We become more able to live in the Now, less distracted by thoughts that seemingly come from nowhere, arising out of whatever miasma of general worldliness that some must posit as their origin point. Instead of shifting in and out of different realities thousands if not millions of times a day, we become able to focus and ground ourselves in the immediacy of the Now, the Here and Now, which must occur if we are to individually survive the energetic nature of what is to come with our consciousnesses intact.

One of the main signs that you are grounding yourself in your present reality is that you daydream much less. Or rather, your daydreams become much more pointed and topical rather than just random wanderings through alternate timelines where you are imagining yourself rich, or with your perfect lover, or doing something other than what you are currently doing. As you center yourself, connecting your ego to your deeper consciousness, the ego stops filling your head with ruminations from other realities and stray psychic detritus it picks up from out of the ether around you. You gain the ability to control your thoughts and by so doing, control your words and actions. You begin to live a more purposeful and directed life.

Collapsing these timelines erases them from existence and you become more powerful in your current life because the energy you expended creating those timelines – which flow on, as life must do once initiated, regardless of your present level of attention – with your imagination is now focused upon the life you are living and the reality within which you endeavor. The dreams that you wished to come true stand a much greater chance of coming to fruition when you are applying your intention to your current situation, coalescing multiversal causality around whatever goal you wish to manifest. Key to this manifestation is the extent to which your emotions are employed in service to your vision and also that your vision is collective in nature, as the multiverse honors connectivity over isolationism in every instance. Following synchronicities that arise surrounding your intentions becomes paramount.

It is at this point that it becomes clear that all of these disparate streams of endeavor work together as a seamless whole in order to present you with the opportunity to live a conscious and creative life, wandering through the scenes of your choosing and picking which direction to move into next based upon its alignment with your intentions. A clear mind sans distracting thought is awakened to the moment and sees everything, is able to calculate probabilities and notice the most relevant events and signs, alerting you to your status and connection to creation in every instant. Balancing thought to minimizing the unnecessary ends worrying and regrets, mulling over situations needlessly and dwelling on negative events and people. The clarity of the moment exudes a joyousness that permeates your life and leaves you impervious to the things that bother other people, that make their lives miserable as they vacillate between emotional states, the past and future and the impositions of other energetic structures.

If all of this sounds too good to be true, then it is. For you. Not for everybody in the world. If you are not aware of the connection between the emotions and intent, and the methods by which to infuse your desires with the energy necessary to make them manifest in your life then that is a skillset you need to cultivate. If you read the previous and immediately think of mansions, fancy cars and lavish lifestyles then you have missed the entire point of this discussion. Once you have achieve a state of clarity in your mind then clarity in your life will follow without a doubt. That clarity is accompanied by the realization that you do not need half of the things that you think you do, or that society has pounded into your head that you need. The joy of that clarity comes with a sense of freedom, and freedom never comes with an increase in material things, only a decrease in them.

If everything we have spoken of here resonates with you please share it with those you care for. Time is of the essence and the energetic flow of potentiality continues to coalesce around miseducated intent. This is changing, slowly, but faster every day. With each new realization that life is designed to be lived and that fear is the mindkiller another soul takes another step in the direction of remembering who she is in the greater scheme of cosmic consciousness. Opening to the world, to the cosmos, is activating the stardust comprising our bodies, is re-energizing our quantum connection to all of life, to other people, the animals, the plants, the earth herself. Living in the flow of life is living in the moment, intending a life of beauty is intending peace and prosperity for others as well as yourself.

It’s not difficult. It’s all about letting go. Of the thoughts, of the worries, the regrets, the fear. Fear of who you have been is a burden to be cast off and joy in who you are is a present to be picked up and shared with all whom you love.

An holistic and multi-dimensional understanding of reality must include recognition of the potentiality that phenomenon considered singular in nature might have some relation to other phenomenon. Also, that at different levels of understanding, phenomenon considered singular in nature might actually have multiple forms of expression. The individual’s journey through the depths of his or her soul is but a microcosmic example of the greater interrelation of galaxies and solar systems, of multiverses and universes. A person’s soul can be part of a group-soul and group-souls can make up Higher Selves, Avatars or Names of God, depending upon terminology and perspective. Finding relationships between disparate phenomenon of a higher ethereal nature cannot occur independent of that phenomenon’s expression on the material plane of existence. With these understandings, we can examine certain ideas and determine whether there are relationships of note to be highlighted and expounded upon.

The Maitreya is the Buddhist equivalent of the Second Coming of Jesus the Christ, the Jewish equivalent is known as the Mashiach and the Islamic equivalent is the Mahdi. All of these savior figures were fortold as coming to the Earth in a time of great tribulation and evil. While there are questions and arguments – both for and against – as to the conceptual viability surrounding the original conception of each one of these messianic figures in the historical record as well as within the sect-based traditions themselves, the broad-based belief in these figures speaks to some underlying need within the human collective unconscious for a supernatural avatar to redeem the world, and those residing within it, from sin. An unbalanced equation requires conciliation of all involved variables in order to find a new balance and order.

While Buddhism is not necessarily considered to be a proselytizing religion the zeal with which some of its proponents profess their faith and engage non-believers in the Dharma certainly possesses some missionary-like fervor. As the primary representative of eastern spiritual thought in western countries, Buddhism has experienced a broad-based acceptance as both a philosophy and a religion. Therefore it is embraced by both believers and non-believers alike. Being outside of the judeo-christian complex of belief systems, and therefore less familiar to many in the West,
the Maitreya avataric conception is not subject to the same cultural preconceptions as the Jesus avatar. Being so unencumbered, it stands to reason that it’s formulation, when adapted from it’s original Buddhist format and combined with the avataric conceptions of the Messiah, the Mashiach and the Mahdi, has the best chance of being representative of some greater truth while not falling prey to the institutionalized limitations that bind the judeo-christian avataric figures to an historic panorama of forced proselytization, warfare and patriarchial repression.

For that reason, entering into the Age of Aquarius, the ancient Hermetic conception, As Above, So Below - which I employ perhaps to distraction in many of my writings – resonates as an appropriate phrasology in this instance as well. The Maitreya energetic construction as a combination and reconception of the savior-complex that typifies the universalizing religions and unity-consciousness templating currently invigorating world populations exemplifies a demi-urgic group soul imperative manifesting during the current phases of human spiritual evolution. It is important to realize as well that the current entry of the Earth into galactic space correlated with the beginning of the Age of Aquarius and also coinciding with Earth’s ascension above the galactic plane and entry into the densest and highest energetic region of the galaxy. While there is much confusion surrounding the astronomical aspect regarding Sol-System’s current position in regards to the galatic plane, the increase in cosmic energetic bombardment of the Earth and the increase in meteoric and cometary appearances in the space surrounding our planet may be indications that it is occuring.

The Aquarian Age is similarly fuzzy when seeking to define parameters. There are varying ideas regarding when it begins and when the Piscean Age ends, with most falling into the current range of decades corresponding to the present era. Entry into this Age, as with all that come and go across the span of time, occurs only through the ending of the previous Age, which often occurs with the fall of old civilizations and the rise of new civilizations. High technology, more sustainable environmental and economic systems, intergenerational, racial and sexual equity and increased spiritual awareness are shared traits that span the gamut of expressions regarding the nature of the Aquarian Age.

Since the Piscean Age was typified by the repression of the Divine Feminine through the institutions of societies across the world the new energetic configurations resulting from cosmic bombardment and the evolution of human consciousness have generated an avataric formulation of the perfection of this inequality in the form of the Twin Flame alignment of souls. Although the hype surrounding the idea of Twin Flames is similarly confusing, it can be said generally that Twin Flames are two people who come together and share an energetic and incarnational alignment. What this means is that they are naturally and magnetically drawn to one another, they share many things in common, they compliment each other very well and their views regarding life are eerily similar to the extent that the confluence of all of these similarities marks the union as exceptional.

Being differentiated from the Soul Mate conception by its exclusivity, the Twin Flame energy is commonly believed to be unique to only two souls who may come together in an incarnation or not. However, the societal and cultural infractions that pervert all spiritual traditions as they become institutionalized and bent to the desires of those who define them have similarly resulted in the corruption of the Twin Flame ideal. Through the synthesis of definition and a focus upon primary intent, the Soul Mate conception can be said to relate to any individual with whom innate soul recognition is shared and with whom previous incarnational resonances can be felt during the currently lifetime. Each person, therefore, has many soulmates that they continue to incarnate with and interact with in lifetime after lifetime. Twin Flame energy, contrary to popular belief, is not a binding of two souls that may or may not meet during a lifetime, but instead a resonance based upon current vibrational frequency that shifts as an individual grows into greater spiritual awareness.

This resonance can only occur once an individual has realized the fallacy of romantic, chivalric love and the associated paradigmatic mainstays(emotional, pheremonic attraction, monogamy, marriage, etc.) that have developed in response to survival needs and inter-sex agreements regarding the disposition and care of the aged, women, children, land and other culture-based institutions. The universality of love as the electromagnetic resonance factor in tune with the base-vibrational qualities of Creation itself subsume the pheremone and emotion-based ephemeris passing as love, awakening the urge to find oppositional expression within another upon the material plane by incarnational time-line interplay through quantum-jumping and manifesting directed intentions at both the conscious and sub-conscious levels. Through the personal melding of oppositional energies an outer expression of same can be found.

In other words, a necessary prerequisite to finding a Twin Flame in the world is for each individual to reconcile the male and female aspects of themselves. The spiritual work necessary to do this can only arise through the process of deep introspection, recapitulation of a lifetime and a delving through and past cultural preconceptions and patriarchial myths designed to uphold current power structures based upon inequality and the suppression of the Divine Feminine. One must dissolve the inner-structures that support the outer institutional expressions of this repression and either consciously or through dream-state work merge potential time-lines within the personal field of the incarnational span with the realization that time is an illusion and all incarnations truly occur simultaneously and are accessible through the directed use of intention and imagination and the lense of a clear and unencumbered mind.

The type of clarity invoked must be of the type cultivated by a mind under control and emotions that have been brought to bear in service of the self rather than in control of the body as is generally the case with most people who have not engaged in personal spiritual work of this nature. Directed energy and healing work, meditation and supplication to allied powers and principalities are among the methods available to individuals to gain the necessary mind control to arrive at a space within their lives where a Twin Flame union becomes a potential expression of life goals and higher potentialities. The Twin Flame template accepts two souls within its intertwined matrix, but it is not necessarily the same two souls all the time. A person can meet someone who expresses the Twin Flame energies and seems to be their perfect mate, but if one continues to grow into the union and the other fails to do so, that soul can exit the template and another can rise to take his or her place. The energetic resonance is the key, not necessarily the Soul Mate who may or may not have stepped up at a particular time to fit the lock.

In drawing the different threads of this article together, the Age of Aquarius proceeds upon the ushering in of the potential of the Maitreya energies realized first individually, through the personal spiritual evolutionary process, then through partners and the male/female union and then collectively as greater soul-groups find themselves surpassing the 100th monkey effect and the cascading imprints of the Twin Flame and Maitreya templates achieve avataric expression and inevitable material manifestation. The rise of the Divine Feminine in relation to the onset of the New Age supports the higher energetic resonance of those already attuned to spiritual growth life-patterns within the current incarnational matrix. More individuals will therefore find themselves engaged in Twin Flame unions as they each do the hard inner work of reconciling their own oppositional natures. The full flowering of the Age of Aquarius, then, must inevitably result in a more tolerant and loving world, as the collective energetic vibration rises due to the influx of cosmic energy, more people engage in soul work and more couples express the Twin Flame template. As that spiritually-aware group coalesces, a simultaneous focusing of energy and intent will result in the concentration of the Maitreya avatar within a twin-flame pairing or an individual. Avatars must exist and spread their teachings for and within each Age.

There are many intellectual and intuitive formulations that fall prey to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. That is the nature of words. The nature of knowledge. That they are interpreted through the lense of prior understanding. As understanding increases, more information is processed and a greater synthesis and multi-dimensional envisioning becomes possible, a truer and more accurate picture of the energetic interconnectivity occurs. Twin Flames are a byproduct of the individual perfection of the soul. It is not a prize, nor is it a higher form of dating or marriage. It is an energetic construction that is designed to increase the vibrational level in the immediate space of its manifestation as well as the frequency of the world as a whole. The Twin Flame template is not an invitation to lose one’s self in the exploration of another to the detriment of the world. Rather, it is an expression of a greater imperative to unite and represent the culmination of the Divine Union of Opposites, the melding of male and female energies within the individual, then the couple and then, the world.

* Article as realized through the process of Bioenergetic Holism™ with Shannon Fry and Jennifer Templeman.

If you say no, there is no difference, what are you basing that belief on?

If you say yes, there is a difference, what are you basing that belief on?

Do you sense the inherent contradiction here?

The limitations of language?

How many times have you noticed how people make their belief systems their lived reality and shaped their own personal experience of the world to reflect that belief? How believers surround themselves with other believers and therefore everything in their environment reinforces their beliefs. If someone believes something with all of their heart and mind, does that make it knowledge? If I believe with all my heart and mind that the world is flat, does that make it true? If I believe with all my heart and mind that God lives in Heaven above and the Devil in Hell below does that make it true? If I believe with all my heart and mind that there is no God at all and that individual consciousness ends at death does that make it true? Are truth and belief equivalent? Are truth and knowledge equivalent?

So what, then, is the difference between belief and knowledge? And what do either of them have to do with truth?

One online dictionary says:

Belief:

An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.

Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction.

Knowledge:

Information and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

What is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information.

Truth:

The quality or state of being true: “the truth of her accusation”.

That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality: “tell me the truth”.

1. Belief: Acceptance. Opinion. Existence.

2. Knowledge: Acquiring. Experience. Practical.

3. Truth: Fact. Reality.

Each of these terms has a subjective and an objective side to them. Each of these terms can mean different things to different people. Each of these terms can be debated endlessly.

Therefore, the only thing the first two terms share in common is their inability to fully encompass all perspectives pertaining to the third term.

As language inherently obfuscates rather than clarifies the attendant difficulties in determining what is a belief vs knowledge and whether either category encompasses truth is a difficult if not impossible task.

The ability of humans to create lives and live them in communities based upon what are later found to be false beliefs, mistaken knowledge or untruths are rife across the span of history. What was true yesterday might be found to be untrue tomorrow. Human understanding of the world and each other evolves seemingly by the microsecond. Ignorance is the common state of everyone, as there is always something we don’t know that can and often does change our entire perspective about any subject whatsoever.

Disparate brain wiring inhibits understanding, different chemical makeups and the ability to control brain chemistry make some of us more or less compassionate and others more or less detached from the considerations and opinions of others.

Whether one believes or knows that Creation is either purposeful or purposeless does nothing to minimize the acknowledged fact of existence. We exist. Our experiences exist. Our perspectives exist. The double slit experiment proves beyond a doubt that the observer affects the observed. At the level of quarks and mesons, at the level of thoughts, the very presence of consciousness affects the material reality that it perceives. Quantum entanglement proves that everything is connected, also at the sub-atomic level. A split atom sent to the other side of the universe will turn simultaneous to the original remaining in the scientist’s lab.

Belief and Knowledge seem to be filters for experience. The less experience we have, the closer we are to belief. The more experience we have, the closer we are to knowledge. The quality of that experience determines how close our beliefs and knowledge are to truth. Whether a truth is a “little t” truth or a “big T” Truth is determined by how close experience approaches the multiversal in nature. Whether that truth is ephemeral, subjective and dependent upon shifting conditions or whether that Truth is an objective and fundamental expression of some multiversal constant.

The constant in all cases is experience. Personal expression. Therefore, our ability to perceive and express beyond the ephemeral, the subjective, the ego and personality-driven and approach the fundamental, the objective, the Higher Self and Avatarically-driven determines the extent to which our beliefs and knowledge reflect a greater rather than lesser Truth.

Who are you?

How closely do you associate with the truths you believe?

How accurately do you reflect the greater Truths of existence?

Are your truths local or universal?

Is there a difference between local truths and universal Truths?

If you say no, there is no difference, what are you basing that belief on?

If you say yes, there is a difference, what are you basing that belief on?

Do you sense, here, the perceptual contradiction that, in reality, is no contradiction at all?

… and intimate. How is it possible to argue with another about such a thing?

A belief is solidified in the mind to become subjective knowledge. That is why everyone’s beliefs are different in some facets. Our neural networks are linked up differently. Our synapses fire to different locations, connecting different pieces of information. Memory, education, experience differs, so how we interpret the same events is dependent utterly upon how we have wired our brains during the course of our lifetimes. That is why what we understand about something is never exactly the same as what someone else understands about it.

In the realm of spirituality this is exacerbated by the inherent unknowability of the process of gnosis. The intimate, personal experience of the inner world. This is why the best spiritual teachers teach in parables. People are thereby guided in the right direction but the destination is not defined succinctly. It is up to the Seeker to have the experience her or himself.

This is a cause of contention. This is a cause of conflict. This is a cause of drama. All of it unnecessary. Unnecessary because there is no ultimate description of spiritual attainment that can be encapsulated in words. How can you describe the indescribable?

For teaching purposes, those who have experienced certain states can employ tactics in order to impress upon students certain lessons that may lead the student in the right direction. The teacher does so from a place of understanding. He is playing upon the students emotions in order to bring about a desired result. If someone who has not experienced a certain state attempts to teach about it that person is not teaching from a place of knowing but instead a place of belief. Two different places. Incomparably so.

This is where conflict comes in and rightfully so. Listening to someone who barely has any idea of what they are talking about is a sure recipe for disaster. Such discussions must inevitably lead to conflict as the teacher is barely beyond the level of the student. When the Buddha was asked how people were supposed to know he was enlightened, he reached down and touched the ground with his fingers and answered, “The Earth is my witness”.

In a discussion with his disciples, Jesus told them that his Father’s house had many mansions. When Thomas expressed his doubts Jesus replied, “No one comes to the Father except through me”. Building upon his original metaphoric description of the path to spiritual salvation Jesus deepens it, his meaning clear. His life, his state of perception, outlook and actions were to be the template for others to follow. He led by example. But the common misperception of those verses to be literal in nature sadly obscure this deeper, gnostic truth. More argumentation.

Respecting the personal aspect of spirituality means that people must be allowed to be where they are at. We are all here as free will entities and to harangue and harass someone about their understanding of the world and their place in it is to totally misunderstand one’s own place in the world.

It is true that samsara is a place of confusion and illusion with the blind leading the blind. So in this world it is normal for such insane practices to be commonplace. It is normal for people to misunderstand. It is normal for people to argue and fight.

But as one comes to a greater understanding, but even more importantly, as one gains experience by accessing certain states of perception and attainment, it becomes easier to let other people be. To let them alone with their illusions. To listen to the “I’s” and “me’s” and “my’s” and “mines” and to understand what is really being said.

Experience trumps book knowledge all day every day. There’s an old saying that those who know don’t tell and those who tell don’t know.

There was a reason esoteric knowledge was kept secret for so long. A reason why the Church, the Mosque, the Temple were able to limit people’s knowledge for centuries. A reason why the secretive higher orders of the monotheistic religions held knowledge in thrall. Knowledge is power. And the reason why esoteric knowledge is so accessible now is indicative of the times and who you are who are seeking it. Even today, what the Seeker finds easily accessible on Internet remains inscrutable mystery to the masses.

Be thankful for your propitious situation and being born into a Time such as this to achieve a destiny such as yours. Now let everyone else walk the Path towards theirs in peace.

Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: ‘Does this path have a heart?’ ~ Carlos Castaneda Quotes from The Teachings of Don Juan

Life is too short. It seems like just yesterday that I was two, living in Maine, lying in the grass on a cool Fall’s day, intensely aware of the blue sky above me. Pale, green blades of grass streaked with gold rising above the fur of my hood, rustling gently, the sound of wind and the awareness that I was connected, that I was a part of something I could not define at such a tender age, but which I now recognize in remembrance as a physical abiding in Oneness. Pure BEing, essence, kenshō. Transcendence’s essence, there, at the very beginning.

Learning to be human, living a Military Brat’s life, moving every couple of years, learning to “fit in” as I could, always seeming to be different from even those were raised in the same world I was. Being malleable, changing personality traits depending upon the company and leaving ego at the crossroads, moving on as the souls left behind sift into memory like pages in a book fluttering faster and faster, ripped out by the gale-force winds of changing circumstances, environs, and people. Life is the same, everywhere. As are people.

Four years old in Novato and Hamilton AFB, California dreamin’. Repeated night visions of what seemed to me to be a ghost in the kitchen. The “dream” of dolls, chasing me with needles. My sister’s Raggedy Ann and Andy and Dressy Bessy dolls stand out. The cover-memory trembles at the edges, fleeting as gaping shadows ripping at the veneer of sanity.

Eight years old on the island of Crete, Greece and my first experiences of sleep paralysis. The weight on the chest, the sudden fear, the rhythmic-but-steady deadening of the limbs, the sensing of a presence nearby, the night-terror familiar to so many throughout the Ages. No idea what it was, but learning techniques to keep the paralysis at bay, beginning a lifetime’s journey into insomnia and alternate experiences of reality, marked as strange through no fault of my own, my night-time and inner journeys seemingly so different from all around me.

Twelve years old, lying in my bed at night, feeling an intense and almost undescribeable feeling of sacrifice, of being adrift in a sea of potentiality, feeling subsumed, permeated with infinite love, infinite giving, infinite possibility. Kenshō again. Blessed unity, Oneness, a realization of essential unity with the All.

Fifteen years old, finding Carlos Casteneda’s “The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge” sitting in the waiting room of an OBGYN at Fairchild AFB where I was a Red Cross Volunteen, looking across at Jenny Grey who was smiling and couldn’t stop staring at my big forehead. I didn’t wear afros long, after that. But the shock of the truths re-discovered then resonate still today.

Sixteen and my Bigmama’s death. Mama’s terrible cry in the back bedroom as Daddy and I worked on a Star Trek fold-up game I’d gotten, both of us staring into each other’s eyes at the sound and jumping up, running back there, knowing something life-altering had happened. Death became personal. As did grief.

Nineteen years old and in the Army, in the Zone and entering a cavernous space within during Morse code training, eight-hour work days spent immersed, connecting at a deeper level to signs and symbols that seemed so archetypal in nature, that became simplistic, mine to express in an instant, leaving all of my classmates far behind. It was as if I’d flexed a mental muscle, entered a hidden region of potentiality, accessed what I needed and then flexed that muscle again to return to normality, drained but excited beyond belief.

Twenty, my Bigdaddy’s passing. Being a Pallbearer for the first time, eyes shut in remembrance of our talks, him always asking me who the black people were in the bible, as if he hadn’t found it out himself decades before, but loving to talk, his shining soul pouring from his pale, blue eyes like fine wine from a decanter of pure crystal. The essence of him remaining, visions of him sitting, nodding, lost in contemplation.

Twenty-two years old and astral-projecting through sleep paralysis into a tropical sea, surround-perception and awareness of the intense coloration of the corals, the nearby fish that seemed to sense my presence yet felt no fear, drifting around me as if I were another outgrowth of brain coral, just a harmless obstacle to be navigated around.

Immersing myself in the world of experience. Forming a conscious vet’s perspective by flirting with death and dissolution, seeking solace in the arms of others, the spirits of plants manifest through drugs and alcohol, not needing validation, trying to lose myself, self-hate or seeking to fill some interpersonal hole, but experiencing for the sake of the experience itself, because I could, and was there, and was living.

These early lifetime experiences forming the basis for later explorations at all levels. The continuing educational journey through HS, college and Grad School, culminating in my present circumstances which encompass all that has come before and from which point I am manifesting all that is within me fully, in sublime celebration of the eternal spirit and infinite possibility. Because I am a writer, an artist, a musician, scientist and scholar, a synthesis of all of these interests might allow me to create something unique, from a perspective not expressed widely.

Don Juan’s wisdom is transformatory. The Path of the Warrior brooks no wavering. It requires clarity. Decisiveness. Making decisions and following them with no looking back, no regrets, no vascillation. Shambhala’s warrior-ship of compassion is the same, as is Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way, as are all true paths taught by all true teachers in the tradition of the Buddha and the Christ. Life is too short to spend it in the Past or Future when the Present holds all the promise that exists in Creation and beyond.

The difficulty of doing so is known to us all by direct experience. Our perception of the world is constantly trying to distract us from the Now through the workings of our minds; our Egos, inordinately concerned with regrets about the Past and worries about the Future, obscuring the moment. As within, so without. Slicing through those illusory concerns leaves us Awakened.

But being Awake provokes despair. Fear, again, in a last gasp of defiance, tells us, “This is the world as it really is, and it has both a beautiful and an ugly face, filled with wonder and horror, and the deck really is stacked against you. You traverse blood-thirsty brambles and dark canyons of malice, and chasms open up around you at every turn, threatening you with failure, with despair. Self-hatred works in opposition to your visions of Perfection and you wonder what it’s all for, what it’s all worth, in the End that you cannot see, cannot understand and, really, cannot even conceive of beyond some surface level understanding of theoretical spaces beyond vision that lie somewhere beyond the sky, and within the confines of the earth. Who do you think you are? G-d?”

A million paths become one. Our lives lead us inexorably toward Death, who waits, patiently, until our prescribed time arrives, at which point he ushers us dutifully toward the biggest change of state that we will ever experience in life. There is no room for fear when our eyes are wide open.

Everything becomes a matter of urgency, a matter of the utmost importance, a matter of foremost importance to the cult of I. From what we eat every day, to the words we say when we’re speaking to others. From the decisions we make about what to buy or not, to the path we decide to take home from work on any given day. Everything becomes meaningful. Filled with the potential for Love, and for direct manifestion of the soul’s urges, which are human and world-centered, yet Divinely otherworldly in aspect and degree.

Forty years old, and my Grandma Dororthy left this plane of existence. The graveyard in Paducah, Texas, is one of the most beautiful places on earth, to me. Big skies and red dirt, a dying town and dozens of cousins whom I haven’t seen in years, gathered around, kindly attentive despite my absence from family gatherings over the years, and circumstances which have left us in different worlds that rarely converge. A biting wind rolling over the funeral, the tent pavilion whipping frantically as stinging particles of red dirt assail us coming from the West. Daddy said later that it was Grandma Dorothy wanted us to get out of there – as ever, not wanting to cause a fuss – because she knew the drama that was coming after. I knew it broke her heart to see it.

Forty-three years old in a DC state of mind, working with my sister and spending my off-time at the Shambhala meditation center, hanging out with Capoeira students, walking the streets of the nation’s capital, unafraid. At 6’4, then 270 pounds, I seemed to be the one people were afraid of. Learning Lojong and Tonglen, implementing the meditations diligently, resulting in a transformatory heart opening. The result is multiple bouts of unexpected tears while walking to work, repeated instances of spontaneous compassion and the resultant bliss gated by grief, wondering if my emotions would ever stabilize again.

Fourty-four and a transmission of grace during a vision from a Master on the astral plane. The Great Gathering and another experience of kenshō, this time recognized and understood for what it was. Exhorted toward further gains, fits and starts of growth and realization culminating in a steady-state resonation in the throes of personal transformation; coming to grips with what my life path has been all about and what Enlightenment really and truly means in the modern world. Also coming to the realization that all of the intellectualism I had cultivated for so many years in the area of spiritual development was for naught. I knew the truth when I was two years old.

The present, and Death still threatens comfort and complacency, as always. Life is too short. Those we love won’t be with us for long. Every decision we make counts. It’s never too late to say you’re sorry. Relationships are what much of life is all about, and when those people we love are gone, we won’t be able to hold them, to kiss them, to tell them that we love them, and to confess the deepest truths of our hearts and souls – and to bear witness to the confession of theirs – to the ones who love us and have loved us and will love us till the End of Forever draws close.

Those recognized moments of Oneness still happen – more and more these days – and the thought of those moments, events, snapshots of Life that led directly to this instant juxapose in meaning, providing an underlying and resonant vibration of Purpose to the clarity of the Now. They are accessible if I need them, but I rarely do anymore. The aftermath of kenshō is qualitatively different from what comes before and the acceptance and re-training of ego is a gradual process within which many pitfalls lurk. Direct experience assures progress as certain knowledge dispels ignorance and continued inner-work clarifies discernment and logos resonation within both the physical and ethereal realms.

My life experience is a composite of all of our experiences. There is nothing I have been through that you cannot go through and there is much I have been through that you have also. We are One within this bio-energetic reality and that means our experience in this lifetime along with all others binds us experientially as spiritual and material family. The family of humanity and the greater family of pure consciousness.

Pain and heartache are certain, while desire remains. Laughter and peace are as well. But between all lies the middle path of acceptance, of openness, of being intensely aware of what, where and who we are, and accepting all that comes to us with a giving and loving heart that knows no boundaries of possibility, seeking resonance and reflection in each other and the world and cosmos that hold us each close, whispering sweet lullabys of yearning and transcendence, soothing our souls as we rush headlong into the Abyss.

It’s hard to admit it when you’re caught consuming someone’s energy. It’s like someone’s caught you with your pants down. Or with unmentionables hanging out of your nose. Everybody’s supposed to move on. Nobody’s supposed to know what is going on, let alone talk about it or accuse you of doing it.

Emotional vampirism. I’ve discussed this issue numerous times before in the context of energy and inter-dimensional relations between different forms of consciousness. The give and take is mostly consensual. You and I might agree to engage in relationship which includes a certain level of energetic give and take. We allow for and give permission to each other to give each other energy. We also allow for and give permission to each other to take energy.

Sharing, caring, laughing, agreeing, listening, giving. This is positive output and we feed each other by giving it. Yelling, arguing, fighting, disagreeing, backbiting, withholding love. This is negative output and we consume each other by engaging in it.

We impose our energetic structures on others. Those closest to us and even strangers. Some people’s energy biomes are so strong they weaken you as soon as you come into contact with them. They seem to overwhelm you and you get the sense of overbearing presence. Other people’s energy biomes are strong in a different way. They seem to suck your energy from you. As if by just looking at you or speaking to you they are consuming your vital essence.

Words are power. I’ve spoken on this numerous times before also. Vibrations, resonance, actual creative force, they are often the means by which energy transfer occurs. As words impact us, entering our ears, their vibratory level, whether high or low, either resonates with us or it doesn’t. Words either give energy or take energy by their construction, by the grammar, the particular words used and the chemical output that fuels them.

Words spoken in anger have a certain resonation, words spoken with love have a certain resonation. One takes energy, the other gives. We have been trained since childhood in how to use words to give and take energy. We have learned to get our energetic sustenance not only from the food we eat but from each other.

As we age, our bodies become less able to glean energy from the food we eat and the nutrients we ingest as the cells of our bodies become used to receiving energy from the emotional patterns that we engage in over a lifetime. It is said that by the age of 35 our personality matrix is pretty much set and it is difficult to change the structure of your neural network and the synaptic lines that connect it. Our emotional habits are also set and we are often addicted to very specific forms of expression that reflect those chemical outputs and the behaviors that support them.

Some of us are addicted to anger. Some of us to sadness. Others to depression, still others to self-pity. Some are even addicted to happiness. All of these addictions are chemical addictions as the emotions that we feel are neuro-peptides released from the hypothalamus suffusing the cells of our body. As we age and our cells die and renew themselves, when they split, new cells are created to support the type of chemicals our bodies are used to making. If we are making anger neuro-peptides then our cells are geared toward accepting those to the detriment of other types of sustenance. This narrowed capacity to accept energy from other sources has obvious consequences.

This is how our body eats. So if, by the age of 35, we are generally consuming the energy gleaned from emotions more-so than actual nutritional sustenance, it is no wonder the aging process results in the death of the cells as they become less able to renew themselves because of their inability to obtain nutrition from natural sources. It is important to realize that we are not just consuming our own emotions, being fed by our own neuro-peptides cascades, but we are also consuming the emotions that we give rise to in others.

The bio-energetic field that surrounds us connects us to all of creation. We are connected to each other. Some call the structure the aura. I call it the biome, as it is supposed to be a self-sustaining habitat for the soul but seldom is for most people. By interacting with words, but also with the pure energy of intent, we are able to impose upon others fields and drain them of vital life force. The familiar game: the inteplay of subtle energy and thought, the engagement of two or more consciousnesses in the misuse of Logos – pure, creative energy – and the Divine Word, the verbal exchange of chemically-enhanced phrases designed to elicit an emotive response, the neurological cascade of chemicals, the emotional powering-up and the resultant induced and endorphin-enhanced high is the essence of vampirism. We strengthen our own biomes temporarily in this manner but, as with all addictions, the fix is soon used up and the search is on for another hit of that good stuff.

It’s very hard to stop. You really have to start paying attention to yourself and what you think and do. Most of us are asleep. By that I mean we spend most of our waking hours walking around thinking about the past and regretting or thinking about the future and worrying. If we’re not doing that we’re vegetating by watching tv or listening to music or surfing the net. Or, we’re talking to others on the phone, socializing at home or out with friends. We never really spend the time necessary to go beneath the story we tell ourselves about ourselves to find out who we really and truly are.

All of these actions are done on autopilot. Our ego, the personality complex, engages in these actions while the real you sleeps beneath. The chatter of sub-vocalization is ceaseless and we think we are aware when we really are not. We have no self-consciousness in this state, which is the reason why most of us cannot remember much about our pasts other than the big stuff. Because we weren’t really awake, in the true sense of the word, when we were going through our experiences.

If you look back at your memories, you will quickly determine that all of them are memories of when you were in the Now moment, when some event occurred that caused you to be totally present, totally awake, totally aware of what was going on. These moments are characterized by a visceral experiential perception that sharpens everything, hearing, seeing, smelling. You feel alive and totally connected to what is going on.

It takes cultivating this awareness, this ability to live in the Now, to be able to take control of your thoughts and by so doing, take control of your emotions and your life. We don’t have to consume each other. It’s really not necessary. We can access infinite energy within. Or, by going out in nature. Or, by engaging in mutually beneficial energy exchange with people who are also living a conscious life.

To defeat the pattern of energy-vampirism it is necessary to know thyself as the ancient Egyptians and Greeks put it. By learning about who you are and what you are capable of you automatically learn about other people and what they are capable of. By shutting off the inner dialogue and cultivating stillness of mind the real you that is beneath the thoughts, the center of awareness, the presence that watches, becomes visible.

Your ego becomes the tool it was designed to be when you are able to allow the real you to take control of your life. When your life is run by the Self beneath the egoistic consciousness you begin to live in tune with your highest potential. One result is that you stop engaging others in energy games because you can see them for what they are and also the futility of the inner conflict turned outwards that the way they live their lives – a mirror of the way you used to live yours – represents.

Since most spiritual paths try to make people act in a civilized manner it doesn’t really matter which one you follow just as long as you concentrate upon the inner goals of personal change, evolution and enlightenment instead of the ritual and the belief systems, which are designed to distract you from the real goal which is self-knowledge. This is not the fault of the Avatars the religions were based on but of the men who built the institutions that followed. Jesus said that we have to have the innocence of children to truly be like him. Buddha said that a state of deep peace experienced as a child led to his realization that meditation was the path to enlightenment. The point seems to be the same; that personal experience and implementation is key.

It’s like language. Certain combinations of words, vibratory resonances, create mental and physical states of BEing within which we either abide or not. Finding those particular combinations is possible no matter the tradition. The recognition of energetic patterns within us leads to the recognition of them without.

The purification of our individuated consciousnesses gives us the capacity to see the world around us in a clearer fashion. We can cast off the blinders of slumber and awaken to the brilliance of life lived consciously.

The common expectation among Seekers is that once you have a satori experience your life is supposed to change. And it does. But not always in ways that are as dramatic as you might have been led to believe.

I write very few personal articles. Which may seem contradictory to my regular readers as all of my articles are very intimate insofar as personal mental, emotional and spiritual development is concerned. What I mean, is that I try very hard not to use the first person singular, “I”, very often in my articles. So I am reticent to share this experience but somehow feel it imperative, if only as a diary of sorts kept to clarify my own process in comparison to the traditions of the Ages.

Ever since the Great Gathering a process of recapitulation has accompanied the personality reconstruction that I have been engaged in. Enlightenment is a process it does not occur suddenly. Cultivating Awareness, Being and the Heart are stages along the journey of Ultimate Enlightenment. But since the evolutionary journey is never-ending, the term “ultimate” when referring to Enlightenment is actually a misnomer in the common understanding and probably stems from the Buddha’s exemplification of the overall process and his followers many and often obfuscating interpretations of his teachings.

The experience of kenshō is a form of Enlightenment, an experience that gives the experiencer an awareness of alternate and deeper states of Being, but it is by no means an end, in and of itself. Nor is it indicative of some instantaneous process of Enlightenment beyond which lies only emptiness or some other inscrutable and penultimate destination. The belief that it is a sudden experience actually hinders progression more than it helps as people waste time seeking when it can only actually happen when you stop seeking. The egoistic tricks and traps that maintain the primacy of the personality construct actively hinder the activation of the satori experience as it is only when the quiescence of the deeper states of spiritual BEingness is pierced by the ego at the behest of the greater awareness that kenshō can occur.

My recent satori experience left me foundering for context as my immersion in Buddhist tradition has been relegated to Shambhala training alone and not the deeper aspects of Buddhism as a religion where such events and how to incorporate them into your life are well documented. To put it bluntly, I didn’t get that far in my training. A few books, a summer at a meditation center, a heart opening and then, back to life as lived, incorporating those events into my daily grind.

Lo Jong mind training and Tonglen, sending and taking, were powerful consciousness practices that came naturally to me and incorporating them into my life was not difficult. In the intervening year and a half since then, occasional yet powerful practice in these and other meditations in addition to my studies and shifts in personal behavior created the spiritual opening necessary in order to achieve the next step. But it was the progress of my unusual life that prepared me for what was to come.

Although I was raised in a Christian home and find validity in its deeper teachings it is the Buddhist tradition that I find most clearly expresses the details of spiritual progress. From this standpoint, I have lived multiple lifetimes in search of Enlightenment. I entered this lifetime with a path designed to achieve that aim which included a relatively peaceful and stable upbringing with all of my basic needs met. A lifetime of travel, which allowed me to discover that people are the same wherever you go. That no place is essentially any different from any other outside of the vagaries of the physical environment. Educational opportunities that gave me access to the cultural treasures and wisdom of the Ages. Everything necessary to awaken my spirit of inquiry.

Basic goodness has been one of the principle expressions of my personality. This aspect has been marred by personal psychological and emotional deviations self-imposed upon my mental and spiritual awareness by familial and racial tropes common to the Age and my incarnative situation of being born into a black body in what is currently a white-dominated world. Being completely different from even those who looked like me on the outside. Emotions and experiences of Otherness, of rejection, of alienation, of aloneness occasioned the deeper exploration of mental and spiritual space at an early age, resulting in my first kenshō at the age of 12 after a particularly traumatic series of experiences at the hands of my peer group.

Experiential living, incarnate within a particular form at a particular time in a particular cultural context determines the details of a life. The choices are then between inner nature and environment. The choice towards inner nature leads invariably to enlightenment. The choice towards environment leads to more and harder lessons. Life as lived in the world as it currently is tends toward the material environment and mental and emotional immersion within it.

Relationships, marriage, children, jobs. Success, failure, loss. The dark night of the soul. Dedication to spiritual progress once the realization that material success is empty and meaningless is internalized. Then, the gradual recapitulation of a lifetime and its lessons. Self-forgiveness and the forgiveness of others. The alignment of inner values with outer expression. Living life in this manner gradually produces clarity in intention and lifestyle.

Basic goodness becomes the outer expression of the inner state of BEing. Life becomes simple. Spiritual practice becomes second-nature and a lifestyle rather than a weekly or holiday-centered obligation. Losing the “I” in the greater sense of the “We”, humility becomes the natural expression of Self. Truly listening to others, cultivating silence within leads to a steady-state resonance with one’s inner-nature which is also human nature in general.

After the kenshō experience, the realization that social obligation demands the molding of the personality to one’s environment must be weighed against the impetus to embody a more malleable and formless state of BEing. Changing the personality construct totally can traumatize those in immediate proximity who may not fully understand what just occurred. It then becomes a question of prioritization that loses its immediacy as the realization that the higher states of BEing are available at any time sinks in.

But something inside has indeed shifted irrevocably. Further spiritual evolution and experience is now inevitable and a byproduct of what has become a proven and natural process of self-realization. Synchronicities increase as awareness also increases. The state of slumber that typifies the unawakened consciousness lessens gradually as more and deeper lessons accrue.

The ego remains. It becomes apparent that the ego is actually a necessary component of Enlightenment. It is the lens directed inward toward deeper consciousness at the behest of the yearnings of the soul. It is designed to be a tool and once utilized as such accepts its role as the silence of the Awakened mind becomes the normative state of awareness.

Experience trumps hearsay in every case. Once gained, it can never be lost.